*hugs* to you Petra!! This is a terrible situation to be in and must be incredibly painful for you – *massive hugs*. It is heart-wrenching to deal with this level of rejection and pain; seemingly for no reason. You do not deserve this treatment; and it’s really heartbreaking when your husband is not on your side!! He is probably struggling with his own shame and a need to be accepted and loved by his family; this can be incredibly hard, and often we are rendered little kids in front of our families, so desperate for their love and approval that we find it hard to act with adult assertion.

You cannot stop these people from hurting you – it is painful and it is a sad reality. But you can be happy and be free from most of your suffering about the situation, if you are willing to do some simple exercises :).

I really agree with the wise responses from Simon and Jade here :). People are incredibly self-involved unfortunately, which makes them often too blind to consider someone with out all of their projections. While it is painful, I do agree that you ‘hustling’ for your worth from them, and love and acceptance. From people that just seem ‘bad’ who have hurt you, rejected you and treated you unfairly – rationally even if they did offer friendship – would you WANT them as friends, aside to ease the suffering you feel? Do they deserve your friendship? The fact that they are taking out whatever their ‘issues’ are which do not make an ounce of sense, on your CHILDREN? Do your children deserve their treatment? And that they cut you out for asserting yourself against that crazy, horrible comment the brother made – that is abusive behavior.

I think, as hard as it is, try not to get angry because you are dealing with abusive people – which means that their actions have no reflection on you. They use their abuse tactics to try and control and make people fall in line – your husband and you but they surely do that with all people, because it is their way of relating and feeling in control. You don’t deserve that crap in your life and I think it’s a blessing that these people have cut you out. It means you can focus your energy on people that do deserve to be there and who deserve to be in your children’s lives.

But rather than walking around with all your pain, and suffering from anger, and hate – while understandable – it is just unnecessary suffering. I really advise you to practice loving kindness meditation 🙂 – it will really, really ease all the pain you are feeling and help you love yourself and feel more peaceful and at ease; then these people’s actions won’t matter so much ^_^. As has been mentioned about auditioning for people’s approval who don’t like you by Jade, sadly you do this because you find it hard to approve of yourself! If you did find it easy, then you would not be driven to gain approval from these people and feel bad about yourself because you couldn’t. Loving kindness meditation has really, really helped me to love and accept myself; when we have own our source of love which we gain from meditation; it’s *amazing* – you feel so much love for yourself – it really is a beautiful feeling :). Love is not control and it is not abuse. Which is what these people are intricately connected with. So as a I say, you cannot change how they feel; but you can change the effect it has on you <3. I really hope that you try the meditation out ^-^! Even just everyday for a week. I also suggest, but I know this will be very painful to maybe consider, that you maybe send some loving kindness their way; because if you suffer from (though righteous) painful anger, resentment or criticalness, it will only deeply add to your suffering – and I do not want that for you.

If you are happy, do you desire to hurt others? No. These people must be deeply miserable that they feel compelled to make you and many others (I am certain) suffer because of their pain. It makes me feel there is a very painful legacy within that family; which also makes me feel some compassion for your husband; clearly he is not like them, but suffers greatly from their treatment. Havig issues with my own in-laws (well kind of, we aren’t married yet!) my longterm boyfriend, I know deeply struggles with desiring their love and acceptance, and finds it very, very hard that their is a rift between my self and his mum. I’m not saying that doesn’t mean that he should not be there for you and stand up for you (though it may seem very fruitless) but I know my boyfriend, personally, finds this a very very hard and painful situation. I find with us, at least, that open, non-angry, deep conversation on how we both really feel really helps us with love and understanding.

Please let me know how it goes :).

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by Kirsten.

People remember not what you say, but how you make them feel. As long as you have treated people with respect & kindness, that’s all that matters.

Hi Petra, personally i think: this has nothing to do with you or your kids, how can his family love him but dislike/hate/ignore HIS beautiful wife and HIS OWN precious kids, thats not even real love in my oppinion.

My conclusion is: people that ‘hate’ somebody else, dont love themselves, they are not happy with themselves/their lives so they go out projecting there unhappy feelings on other beings so that THEY dont have to confront themselves with the painfull/ugly/insecure feelings they have inside themselves..

If you RLY love yourself you couldnt hate anything, cause you know.. youlb happy, enyoing & loving & sharing life!

This is what i have learned in my 27 years.. Nowadays i dont take it personal when anybody is treating me hars/rude/unlovable etc. it comes from the inside of them and has nothing to do with me.

Does this make sense? (english isnt my 1st-lanuage).

I wish you a lot of luck and love from the Netherlands!

I feel like I am reading my story. My story is very long. I am in a situation that sometimes I think my husband loves me, but then when his family are doing and saying evil things about me, he not only doesn’t fight for me, he blames me most of the time for their actions. Not only that they talk bad behind my back, they bring in his other kid’s mother in the issue and fill her head up try to convince her that I take all of my husband’s money and cause him not to take care of his other kids, and they know that his ex-wife hates me and they now befriend her stirring evil.
His sister a couple of days ago had the nerve to text me some horrible things, even name my two young babies that I have with my husband as part of her hatred…she said thing like his other kids came first, you make him abandon them to only take care of yours.
I can’t get over how people can be so mean and evil. I chose to not respond and ignored her text. I showed my husband her text, he did nothing not even to say I am sorry Rose that you are going through this.
Every single member of his family hates me…I mean, not one person with the decency and the heart to say, enough is enough, this lady does not deserve this.
My story is that I brought my husband and two children in the US from another country. I have the house, the good paying job. He was not doing anything back in his home country. When he came here, he did not work for 4 months, I took care of him, send money to his kids’ mom and got the kids to come to this country with my money. When his kids came, made sure they had their own room, took care of their medical needs etc.
Now he is working, he makes one third of what I make, his family blames me that I take all of his money, meanwhile we have 2 babies together with day care, diapers. He keeps his money separate and gives me $125/week for day care for the babies, he pays water bill, car insurance for both our cars, and cable/phone–all less than $500 month.
After all of my efforts and the opportunities that I provided to him and his children, not one of his family member can find it in their heart to acknowledge one good deed about me.
How do I stay in this marriage? I’ll tell you I am afraid for my life, I feel like they are evil, dangerous, they might do evil things to me and my children, especially after the text that his sister sent me…
I keep saying to myself if this is even worth fighting and staying. This is so unhealthy–why should I stay with my husband?
Please help with thoughts…would you stay and how can you stay and feel safe and happy?
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

hello – I’m looking for advise, words of comfort, or wisdom. Anything to help me feel better. I am so very distraught. I don’t know what to do.
I’ve been married to my husband for 11 years. He has 3 adult daughters that I have done so much for and never get a thank you. In fact they thank their father for things I have done and he never corrects them and tells them It was me. He happily takes the credit. We have been raising 2 of his grandchildren for over 7 years now because their mother spends more time in jail and was abusive to the oldest. All 3 of his daughters are nice to my face but backstabbing witches. When they visit they literally hang on my husband like Hugh Hefner and his playboy bunnies. It embarrassing. My husband admits his children are mean and disrespectful towards me but he refuses to say anything to them. He sits by and, in my opinion, gives them his blessing to do and say what they want no matter how nasty by not saying a word and stand up for me. I feel he is Silently giving his approval to them to treat me anyway they want. I have asked, begged, cried, pleaded with him to please have my back and say something to them. He tells me he is not comfortable with confrontation. When we get in arguments about this he gets mad at me. He does not apologize for anything they have done. He does not emphasis in anyway. He sits there and says “I don’t know what to say”. This has happened so many times I’m feeling stupid for staying with him for so long. He has clearly chosen to not defend me. I am afraid to leave as he works (I’m the stay at home grandma) and he has threatened to take the kids saying they are his grandchildren and no court would allow me to have them (I have been 24/7 their main caretaker for over 7 years). One is 10 the other 7. They have no other maternal female in their lives. I know he would do this just to hurt me. His entire family only thinks of themselves. Kids do not come first with him and his daughters. It’s all about them. I cannot leave these children. I love them as my own. I have no money and no place to go. The house I bought and when we got married he moved in. His salary has been paying mortgage so this house is no longer all mine. I feel trapped in a marriage with a man who is more in love with his daughters than his wife. I want him to have my back but her clearly refuses. Does anyone have any advice.